Dr Fabio Carbone

Fabio Carbone (PhD, with honorary title of Doctor Europaeus) is an expert in the relations between cultural heritage management and tourism for the promotion of global understanding and peace. He is author of many scientific papers, book chapters, and co-editor of the book “Role and Impact of Tourism in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation” (IGI Global © 2021). He is also the author of the entry “Peace through Tourism" in the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies (2022), that provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on peace and conflict studies ever produced. In this sense, the entry by Fabio Carbone officially and definitively established the theoretical link between Cultural Heritage Management, Tourism and Peace and Conflict Studies. His commitment to the topic is not exclusively academic, as he is involved in several projects, particularly in Europe and Middle East. He was recently appointed as International Executive Director of the Department of Sustainable Development at the Institute of International Peace Leaders, and he is member of the scientific board of the European Network of Places of Peace. This commitment on the field, and his cutting-edge research on the association between cultural heritage, tourism and peace earned him the appointment as a Global Ambassador of the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) and IIPT Special Envoy to Iran. He is currently based in the UK, lecturer of International Tourism Management at Coventry University, working as a Visiting Professor in several European universities, and as Honorary Professor at the Daneshpajoohan University in Isfahan (Iran).

Since 2012 I have consistently contributed to the field of tourism with my ground-breaking studies and publications focusing on the complex relationship between tourism, cultural heritage management, and peace. I explore how tourism can contribute to the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage while fostering peacebuilding efforts. This research interest has encompassed various aspects of contemporary issues, ranging from education and cultural awareness (Carbone, Oostebeek, and Costa, 2012), to international relations and cultural diplomacy (Carbone, 2017); from the integration of asylum seekers and refugees (Carbone, 2018) to new models of cultural heritage management for sustainable tourism (Carbone, Torabi, and Seyyedi, 2019; Carbone, et al., 2020) and its contribution to conflict transformation (Carbone, and Oosterbeek, 2021; Carbone, Shahrabi, Antonucci, Silveira, and Patuleia, 2022) and finally the role of war museums and peace education (Carbone, 2022), and – in post conflict societies, to serve as think tanks for reconciliation processes among former opponents (currently under review). The level of innovation in my approach to the topic has been the basis for an invitation to contribute with the entry “Tourism and Peace” for the renowned Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies, officially setting - after 30 years of academic debate - the connection between tourism and peace studies.